While my Hounds of the North fantasy series was inspired by Northern European history with a heavy nod to Vikings, Celts, and Picts, my current series is inspired by Southeast Asia.
Indonesia is a fantastic place with friendly people and diverse cultures, magical forests, and amazing ocean life.
So I got to thinking about what Indonesian weapons I might include in this series.
Here's my top … [Read more...]

Last night, my wife and I saw Leonardo Di Caprio's latest film: The Revenant.
First off, great film. Fast-paced, gritty tale of revenge.
Often a great story does not depend so much on the protagonist as much as it does on a fully fleshed out antagonist. The character of Fitzgerald played by Tom Hardy is an incredibly written antagonist - from the early scenes establishing his mad desire for … [Read more...]

Hear me read the first chapter of Five Bloody Heads
...as well as talk about writing and martial arts.
I just did an interview and an exclusive reading on the Grim Tidings Podcast and I thought you might want to hear what I said about writing, martial arts and my upcoming book Five Bloody Heads.
To get things started, you can hear a short reading of the first chapter of my upcoming book … [Read more...]

The other day I was reading a fantasy book and, in an early fight scene, the hero tackled someone coming at him with a knife.
Red flag alert.
As someone with a long history in martial arts training, I nearly tossed the book out of my lap.
No experienced fighter (which is what the hero was) would ignore the immediate the threat of a blade and try to tackle an enemy's knees. That's a good … [Read more...]

Always with a mind to improve my writing craft, I have been on the lookout for advice from other authors about how to write effective fight scenes in books.
First a video from Brandon Sanderson:
A blog post from sword and sorcery author Seth Skorkowsky entitled Writing Fighting.
A solid blog post from a writer who also participates in events with the Society for Creative Anachronism … [Read more...]

Belt Burning
I recently had my worst night ever on the mats in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Worse than those bruising, no technique battle-to-the-death rolls as a white belt. Worse than the long series of competition losses at blue belt. Worse than the night my knee went snap-crackle-pop.
I'm not going to go into the details of the night. But it was a bad night - for my ego and my expectations. … [Read more...]

About the Author

Peter Fugazzotto is a fantasy and science fiction author who fights to protect the earth by day and battles his ego with armbars and slashing sticks by night. He lives in Northern California with his wife, daughter, bird and dog.
His short stories have been published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly and Grimdark … READ MORE

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I read in a book recently that an experiment was done that showed that unfinished projects take up more mental bandwidth than finished projects. The scientists tested this by allowing their subjects to finish some puzzles but not others in a certain allotment of time. The subjects continued to think about the unfinished puzzles afterwards. […]

Yes, martial arts are supposed to be about self defense or combat. Injure, maim, and take out the threat. But there’s a difference between training and applying the arts in real life. One of the aspects of martial arts where people struggle with is their ego and their desire to win. This is rampant in […]